To view the paper visit the publications page.

The proposed system is intended as a preferred option that could be taken forward for development and implementation. It has been prepared on behalf of the Department for Transport by the Steer Davies Gleave Bikeability support team in consultation with the recently formed industry body, The Association of Bikeability Schemes (TABS).

Your feedback is welcomed on the paper. If you’d like to provide feedback, please send your thoughts by 5th July 2012 to contactus@bikeability.org.uk. Practical suggestions are encouraged and there is a list of questions and topics for consideration on page 11 of the paper.

At the TABS conference on 21st June there will be presentation and a questions and answers session on the proposed system. To book your place at the conference, please visit the TABS website : www.tabs-uk.org.uk.

The materials that we are reviewing include the Level 1, 2 and 3 outcomes of the National Standard, the outcomes for instructor training and the some of the rules for teaching the National Standard. The review materials can be downloaded here.

The National Standard was developed by a range of government and non-government organisations and is underpinned by consensus rather than regulation.  The original outcomes were agreed over 5 years ago, and given the goal shared by public bodies and the industry to continually improve quality of cycle training delivery, we are now looking to consider any necessary changes to keep the standard in line with current good practice. 

The review will only make additions or changes to the National Standard where necessary and justifiable.  Brevity and stability are desirable characteristics for a set of key training outcomes.  We will encourage all that want to contribute to the review to come forward with proposals that are well-developed and have wider support. 

National Standard Review Process

Although the material for review is now in circulation informally the official  period for the review is from Friday 4th May to Friday 6th July.  An important part of the review process is that responses are only going to be accepted from ITOs and CTSB members through a form that will be sent to those contacts. There are several reasons for this, but the most important is that the DfT is looking for considered responses from the leaders of cycle training.

After the closure of this initial review, time will be taken to sift these responses and if necessary seek clarification. The first draft of the updated National Standard will be circulated to ITOs and CTSB members on Monday 15th October with a deadline for responses of Friday 9th November. It is intended that the new material will be ratified by the CTSB in December and published in January 2013. After the publication of the new National Standard outcomes a process for updating training manuals will also begin and a timetable for implementing the new National Standard will be put forward.

Funding has been allocated to local highway authorities and schools across the country for the national Bikeability scheme which provides cycling proficiency for the 21st century.

As well as the £11m of grants agreed for this year, a further £24m will be allocated by the Department for Transport over the following two years. This includes an extra £2m to support expansion on top of money originally earmarked for Bikeability. Additional local contributions worth around £11.5m are expected over the next three years.

Local Transport Minister Norman Baker said:

“Cycling brings many benefits, and as a government we are keen to encourage its uptake as a healthy and sustainable transport choice, which eases congestion and helps cut carbon.

It is vital that the next generation of cyclists is well prepared with the skills and confidence to ride safely and well on modern roads and this funding ensures that many more thousands of children will receive the solid grounding to set them up as lifelong cyclists.”

Big winners this year include Merseytravel who are receiving over £400,000, Hampshire, where children will benefit from almost £500,000 worth of training, Staffordshire receiving more than £350,000 and Kent, where total funding is over £380,000.

The Department has also published a report looking at the number of children cycling to school since the introduction of the Bikeability scheme five years ago. In March the scheme celebrated five years of delivering training for children in schools.

This report shows that where there is a longer history of delivering cycle training, a higher proportion of children are cycling to secondary school. Further, those authorities that have received higher levels of Bikeability funding have seen larger increases in cycling to secondary school.

For further details, please see the full press release available at http://www.dft.gov.uk/news/press-releases/dft-press-20120411a/

The number trained each year continues to grow, and, to accommodate this increase, training is now a year-round activity in many places rather than the summer term activity it used to be. Approximately 500,000 children leave primary school every year and over half of them are now being trained to ride on the road.

The impact of cycle training is that children are far more likely to cycle to their friend’s houses, the shops and to school. Increasing numbers of primary schools offer the training to Year 5s so that children can cycle to school in their last year, but cycling to secondary schools is more likely to benefit.

From now on, thanks to a loosening of the grant rules by the Department for Transport, more children will also go on to take Bikeability Level 3, which equips them for the busier roads and more complicated junctions they are likely to encounter on their way to and from secondary school.

There are over 350 cycle training schemes registered to deliver Bikeability and more than 6,000 people have trained as instructors. This large group of people and organisations spans Local Authorities, School Games Organiser Host Schools, private companies and charities.

On its 5th birthday, Bikeability is in good health and growing strongly. It continues to grow and develop in the hope that the next generation of bike riders will ride their bikes – safely – for pleasure, for fitness, for getting about and for fun for the rest of their lives.

In March 2011 over 800 schools participated in The Big Pedal, pedalling 600,000 school journeys by bike over just 15 days. This year The Big Pedal wants 1,000 schools to take part and make the challenge an even greater success. Get your school on board and register them at The Big Pedal website.

The Big Pedal is a giant inter-school cycling competition spanning 15 school days in March (5th – 23rd March 2012). It works a bit like the Tour de France in that each day of the race is a new stage following a different Sustrans cycle route around the UK.

Schools encourage pupils, parents and staff to cycle and scoot to school each day and the more that do, the faster their time will be for each stage of the race. Most schools take part in the whole three week challenge, but schools can also just enter one or more of three daily stages on Tuesday 6th, Thursday 15th and Wednesday 21st March.

Find out more at The Big Pedal website.

The Cycling City and Towns Programme awarded funding to successful towns (and one city) to help them deliver a range of measures designed to get more people cycling. The programme aimed to increase investment in cycling in the participant towns and city to equivalent levels of investment made in the best European cycling cities, with an aim of proving that increased funding and bespoke projects could have a significant impact on cycling rates.

In addition to infrastructure improvements and promotional activity, funding was also allocated to Bikeability training for both children and adults, helping them to develop the necessary skills and confidence to make use of the new and improved cycle routes being provided. All projects have recognised the importance of providing high quality cycle training, both in terms of encouraging completely new cyclists, and in helping occasional cyclists to cycle more often.

The full reports for all Cycling Towns and the Cycling City can be found at http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/cycling-city-and-towns-end-of-programme-reports/

Follow the links below to watch the videos.

For parents: 

http://www.youtube.com/user/transportgovuk?feature=watch#p/c/1/aKxFIiTRS9c

For teachers:

http://www.youtube.com/user/transportgovuk?feature=watch#p/c/2/Gj44JmWXHwI

For Local Highway Authorities:

http://www.youtube.com/user/transportgovuk?feature=watch#p/c/0/nmrPhhUXs40

The study, which targeted parents of children in Years 6 and 7 across England, had the following key findings:

• Parents think that formal cycle training is important for their children – more than eight in ten respondents indicated that it was ‘important’, including four in ten who stated it was ‘very important’;
• Of those whose children had participated in Bikeability, 90% said that it had improved their child’s safety on the road; and
• Around one in twenty respondents were aware of Bikeability spontaneously, especially mothers.

The full report can be found at http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/bikeability-brand-research.

Transport Minister Norman Baker today announced that £2,083,976 has been allocated to 206 schools across England to fund over 50,000 Bikeability cycle training places this year. 

This follows a commitment given earlier this year by the DfT to support and provide funding contributions for Bikeability for the remainder of the parliament.  A total of £11m has been made available for cycle training during financial year 2011/12, helping to deliver up to 275,000 cycle training places to school children aged between 10-11. 

Norman Baker announced the funding whilst on a visit to Chalk Ridge Primary School in Basingstoke, where he observed children taking part in Level 2 Bikeability training which involves cycling on the road. Chalk Ridge Primary School will have 52 training places delivered.

Norman Baker said:

“This Government is strongly committed to cycling – it is a crucial part of building a healthy and sustainable transport network for the future.  That is why we have provided £11m of funding this year for the Bikeability programme, which not only promotes the benefits of cycling as a healthy and enjoyable way of getting around, but enables children to do it safely and confidently.”

Local Authorities bid for Bikeability grants in advance of the financial year starting.  In addition, Schools Games Organiser Host Schools – who are responsible for co-ordinating PE and school sport with partner schools – bid for grants via the Youth Sport Trust.  There are two opportunities each year for them to bid for funding and today’s announcement sees the first allocation.  There will be another allocation of funding in November this year.   

Jim Blaber, Deputy Head, Chalk Ridge Primary School, said:

“The Bikeability scheme is very important; it allows pupils to develop a lifelong skill, encourages independence, promotes a healthy life style choice and ensures that the children are safer when cycling on our busy roads.”

For the full article, see http://www.dft.gov.uk/news/press-releases/dft-press-20110109

Read more on this development here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/news/press-releases/dft-press-20110909